


not shy of a spark

by cosmicbees



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, Existential Angst, Kissing, Love Confessions, M/M, Pining, Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-06
Updated: 2020-02-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:27:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22504018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmicbees/pseuds/cosmicbees
Summary: Sylvain and Felix have a friendly chat about life and death“I could stay here forever,” Sylvain mutters sleepily, stifling a yawn behind his hand as he breaks the silence between them.“At Garreg Mach?” Felix asks. Sylvain speaks often of how he misses his family home in Faerghus–Felix can’t imagine him making a permanent home in the south of Fódlan.“No,” Sylvain snorts out an abrupt laugh, waving his hand towards the patches of blue which peek through the leaves overhead. “Right here. I think I could stay here in the sand until it swallows me whole and makes me a part of it—just spend an eternity under this tree.”Felix frowns in frustration. “No, you couldn’t.”
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Comments: 3
Kudos: 138
Collections: My Favorite Fics





	not shy of a spark

**Author's Note:**

> QUICK CONTENT WARNING: this fic contains discussion of suicidal ideation and the implication of past suicide attempts! There is also some brief, and decidedly non-fatal choking! if any of these things could be triggering or at all upsetting to you, it might be best to pass on this fic!
> 
> big big big love for [asce](https://twitter.com/lovtitania) whose idea inspired a massive chunk of this fic, and for letting me bring the concept of felix choking sylvain to life through writing!

Summer takes Garreg Mach gently.

The last signs of a cool, rainy spring fade away during the Garland Moon, giving way to vibrant warmth and bright, sunshiney days. 

Felix hated the summer during his first year at the monastery—hated that he was forced to navigate the suffocating heat and humidity that enveloped Garreg Mach, and hated the way the Academy uniform’s cotton shirt stuck to his skin. He would often long for the crisp mornings and dew-covered grass of northern Faerghus’s fields, missing the way that, even in the dead of summer, the nip of early morning air could bring a chill to his skin. 

Now, with five years of distance between that first summer and himself, Felix has a newfound respect for summertime in the south of Fódlan. He has learned how best to avoid the scorching heat of the Blue Sea Moon, sticking to the shade of the towering cottonwood trees scattered across the monastery grounds and saving the most taxing tasks for the earliest hours of the day, or long after the sun has set. 

Midday, when the sun is high overhead, burning as bright and white-hot as possible, is almost always reserved for rest. The professor and Dimitri often gather together in the war room, pouring over battle plans and strategies with Alois and Gilbert, while the others sequester themselves to the library or their rooms to wait out the worst of the heat. 

Today finds Felix and Sylvain resting on the banks of the river that winds around the base of Garreg Mach, the two of them nestled in the shade of an oak tree that Felix thinks must be at least as old as the goddess herself. It’s the kind of day that Felix would have hated when he was a student at the Academy–without a cloud in sight, there’s little respite from the sun which beats down through the gaps in the leaves, bathing them in golden-green light. 

At the base of the oak tree, Sylvain is sprawled out on his back, face tilted upward to the sky as he drinks in the radiant warmth. He’s been motionless for so long that Felix thinks he must be napping, eyes closed and mouth parted around a sigh. A small part of Felix wants to shake Sylvain awake and call him a fool for falling asleep in an unfamiliar place while they’re in the middle of a war, but he can’t find it in him to do so. Sylvain looks so at peace. With his copper hair curling into the sand beneath his head it, Felix finds the flutter of his eyes and the twitch of his fingers too endearing to begrudge him a well earned nap. 

Felix shakes his head, clearing the image of Sylvain sprawled out beside him–the position too close to being what Felix has yearned after for years–from the corners of his brain before turning his attention back to the blade in his lap. He has spent the better part of an hour working the silver over with a polishing cloth, sweat beading on his forehead from the effort.

Satisfied with his work, Felix sheathes his sword and sets it aside. The fruits of his labors are evident on his hands. His palms as well as his old polishing cloth are both black with tarnish. The latter is overused and in desperate need of replacement, but Felix’s silver sword shines with a mirror-like finish for the first time in a long time.

The past months have been spent in battle, fervent and never-ending, leading Felix to neglect the upkeep of his sword. He has a sudden realization that the stains on his palms aren’t all that different from the years of killing that have undoubtedly left an indelible tarnish on his soul. Pushing himself to his feet, Felix crouches at the edge of the water and plunges his hands into the rushing river. He scoops up a handful of sand from the shallow water before him, and uses the grit to scrub tarnish from his fingers, watching as the skin of his hands fades from black, to grey, to a tender, rubbed-raw pink. 

With a sigh, Felix says a quick little prayer to a goddess that he’s not even sure exists, asking that the blood which stains his spirit can be washed away just as easily as the soil on his hands. If even The Boar can find redemption for his sins, should Felix and the others not be afforded the same opportunity?

Felix looks over his shoulder to Sylvain’s sleeping figure again, the sunlight dappling him in golden patches of warmth through the leaves. He looks all the more lovely in sleep, as rest blurs the worry lines that have etched themselves into the space between Sylvain’s eyebrows. If anyone will come out on the other side of this war intact in body and soul, Felix knows it will be Sylvain. 

Sylvain is selfless and good in the kind of way that makes him stupid sometimes—too eager to charge into battle to protect his friends and his people. He seems so unafraid of the world, and unafraid of an uncertain future that Felix envies him for it. When they were younger the death of his brother Miklan, killed by Sylvain’s own lance, wasn’t enough to wipe the dopey, lopsided grin from his face forever. Even now, embroiled in a war that so often feels hopeless, Sylvain seems to be the only one who hasn’t made a sport of killing the enemy, and the only one who still openly mourns when there’s been too much bloodshed on a battlefield. 

He knows that the deaths of his family and friends, and the senseless loss of so many other lives to this war have made him numb, and Felix wishes, in so many ways, that he could be more like Sylvain.

If Felix were a braver man, he might have told Sylvain all of this, but even now it seems impossible to put the desire and admiration he feels into words.

If Felix were a wiser man, he’d never have thought so deeply about any of it in the first place. 

If Felix had any shred of dignity or self-preservation left, he wouldn’t stretch out beside Sylvain on the sun-warm sand, hands behind his head as he looks to the sky. 

But Felix is none of those things, and so he settles beside Sylvain on the river bank, realizing that this may be their last meaningful chance at rest before they march on Arianrhod in a few days’ time. He closes his eyes, letting the rustling of leaves and the distant chirp of a bird lull him into restfulness. 

Felix daydreams of his youth, and the mild summers of his family’s estate–so very different from the summers at Garreg Mach. As far back as Felix can recall, the garden in the courtyard was his favorite summer spot, filled with fruits and vegetables ripening in the warmth of the sun and as many colorful floral blooms as Felix could ever hope for. There, Felix could lay in the shade of the old maple tree and nap for hours before his father discovered him. 

When his friends came to visit, Felix flaunted the garden proudly. He would show them the little patch of dirt that was his, growing nothing but weeds and wildflowers that Felix still tended to dutifully while Glenn chuckled nearby, helping Felix to determine the value of each little blossom. There was a mossy little pond behind the maple, where a family of bullfrogs croaked themselves hoarse, and Felix would splash his bare feet in the water while the afternoon sun beat down from the blue sky above him. 

As far as Felix was concerned, the best parts of the courtyard were the hardest to find. If he tucked himself in behind the rose bushes or crawled beneath the lilacs, Felix was impossible to find during games of hide and go seek. Ingrid and Dimitri would often ask Felix to share the best hiding places in the Fraldarius estate, but he always giggled and shook his head  _ no _ . Sylvain had found Felix beneath the lilacs once, crawling in far enough that when they both tumbled out of the bush a moment later, tiny purple flowers were stuck in their hair, scattered about at odd angles. Because of this, Felix chose to entrust the secret of his hiding places to Sylvain alone, as he has with so many of his other secrets since then.

“Hey, Fe?” Sylvain’s voice is quiet, nearly lost to the warm breeze that rattles the leaves on the oak tree overhead. His name on Sylvain’s lips is enough to pull Felix from the brink of sleep.

“Mmmm?” He hums groggily, turning his head so that he can look at Sylvain. Sylvain hasn’t moved, but he looks over to Felix in return.

Sylvain blinks lazily, letting the hush of quaking leaves and water rushing past fall over their piece of the forest. After a while, he opens his mouth to say something but stops, swallowing thickly and shaking his head as though he thinks better of it. He turns his face back to the sky, and says, “Just wanted to make sure you’re awake. It wouldn’t be safe for us to fall asleep out here in the middle of a war.”

Felix scoffs and shoots a hand out to slap at Sylvain, landing a solid hit on the edge of his arm. “Then I suppose it’s a good thing I was awake the whole time you slept.” 

“I knew you’d keep me safe, Fe.” Sylvain chuckles, rubbing at the spot on his upper arm where Felix made contact.

A small part of Felix wants to throttle him for sounding so sure of himself, but Sylvain is right. Felix doesn’t respond, unwilling to give Sylvain the satisfaction of an affirmation they both know is hanging unspoken in the air between them. Instead, Felix keeps his eyes fixed on Sylvain’s profile, silhouette cut sharp against the verdant green trees.

A smattering of freckles have cast themselves across Sylvain’s face, dusting the high points of his cheeks and covering the bridge of his nose. It’s the summer sun that has painted them there–Felix is sure of it because the same faint freckles would appear each summer in their childhood, before fading from Sylvain’s face at the onset of winter. They’re different every year, sometimes a pronounced golden shadow across his nose, and sometimes barely visible against his skin, but Felix counts himself as fortunate to know these things about Sylvain at all. It’s a testament to the years they’ve spent at one another’s side, and the knowledge sends a surge of warm affection coursing through Felix’s chest. 

“I could stay here forever,” Sylvain mutters sleepily, stifling a yawn behind his hand as he breaks the silence between them.

“At Garreg Mach?” Felix asks. Sylvain speaks often of how he misses his family home in Faerghus–Felix can’t imagine him making a permanent home in the south of Fódlan.

“No,” Sylvain snorts out an abrupt laugh, waving his hand towards the patches of blue which peek through the leaves overhead. “Right here. I think I could stay here in the sand until it swallows me whole and makes me a part of it—just spend an eternity under this tree.”

Felix frowns in frustration. “No, you couldn’t.” 

“I dunno,” Sylvain shrugs half-heartedly, eyes still fixed to the sky. “I probably could. I think it might be nice, actually … a lot easier than any of the other ways I’ve tried to go.” 

The admission is sudden, and catches Felix by surprise, landing like a well-aimed punch to his stomach. He swallows around the distress that rises high in his throat with the impact. “What is that supposed to mean?” 

“I’ve just—“ Sylvain lets out a long suffering sigh. “I want it to be easy, you know? I don’t want it to hurt.” 

“No! What do you mean about—“ Felix hisses, pushing himself up onto his elbows, so that he can better look at Sylvain’s face. “What are you—what do you mean you’ve  _ tried  _ to go?” 

Sylvain furrows his brows, and finally looks to Felix again. “Well, I mean—it’s not like that Fe … it’s been a long time.” 

“But you’ve—“ 

“I wanted to die, yeah.” Sylvain finally admits. The words are quiet, tinged with shame, but are somehow still sharp as they pierce Felix’s heart. “I still do, actually. I thought about it sometimes when we were younger, and then more when we were at the Academy, after everything that happened with Miklan. Now I think about it all the time because at least if I were dead I wouldn’t be in this pointless fucking war over crests and nobility and all this stupid shit I don’t believe in anyway!” 

Sylvain throws his hands into the air to punctuate the statement. Felix thinks that, were he more empathic, he’d be able to feel years of bottled up anxiety rolling off of Sylvain in waves. To hear Sylvain speak so candidly settles an ache into Felix that he’s unsure how to confront, and the ache gives way to frustration, and–after another moment–inexplicable anger. 

“Shut up!” Felix grits his teeth, failing to suppress his aggravation. “You’re not going anywhere.” 

“I’m not,” Sylvain agrees with a cold chuckle. The words are hollow, feeling less like a reassurance than Sylvain likely intends, and more like an empty promise. “But what if I could? Being dead doesn’t sound so bad when you think about the possibilities. Sometimes I think it would be nice to just … disappear.” 

Something sparks in Felix’s fingertips—a rage and desire that he can’t quite place, and he curls his hands into a fist so tight that he can feel his nails digging little crescent moon marks into his palms. How could someone so dear to Felix think of giving up? Could Sylvain really find it in himself to leave Felix behind, as so many in his life have already done? He spits the next words out, each one tearing at something in his chest. “You don’t even know what you’re talking about, Sylvain, so why won’t you just shut up?” 

“You think I don’t know?” Sylvain barks out a bitter laugh that sends a chill up Felix’s spine. “If I weren’t here, if I didn’t have this worthless crest, Miklan would still be alive! And if I were gone? That would be fine bec—“ 

In the blink of an eye, Felix lunges towards the other man, throwing a leg over Sylvain’s waist and clambering atop him. The sudden weight on his chest knocks the breath out of Sylvain with a wheeze. “Shut  _ up _ !” Felix hisses, hands wrapping around Sylvain’s throat. “Goddess, won’t you stop talking and think about something other than yourself, Sylvain?” 

Sylvain’s eyes grow wide when Felix’s thumbs press into his windpipe, and his mouth opens on what turns into a caricature of a gasp. He tries to speak, but even then the words are lost on his tongue, breathless in the worst way. 

“You really want to die?” Felix spits. His knees dig into the soft sand on either side of Sylvain’s body as he bears down, leaning in close and pressing more of his weight against Sylvain’s throat with the newfound leverage. “You’re fucking selfish, Gautier!”

Sylvain reaches up to wrap his fingers around Felix’s wrists. His grip is light, but sure, as he holds Felix’s arms in place. Sylvain could easily throw Felix off if he wanted to, standing nearly a head taller than Felix does himself, and made up of the solid muscle that only comes with years of training in armor.

Sylvain’s refusal to retaliate does nothing but fuel Felix’s anger, and he squeezes tighter. “Is this what you wanted? Isn’t dying exactly what you wanted?” 

After what feels like an eternity of silence between them, a desperate, hungry sound slips out of Sylvain’s throat. It happens again a moment later, and Felix realizes that Sylvain's body is trying to force air into his lungs, only to be stopped by the hands wrapped around his neck. Sylvain blinks up at him through the tears that are gathering fat and wet in his eyes, and just gives Felix’s wrists a gentle squeeze and a sad sort of smile.

The touch feels too close to encouragement, like Sylvain is asking Felix to finish the job he’s already started–as if he believes that Felix would actually be able to follow through. 

“I hate you!” Felix snaps. If Sylvain is allowed to be so selfish as to not only ask for his death, but to seek it out, then Felix is allowed to be selfish enough to deny him that right. Loosening his grip on Sylvain’s throat and letting his shoulders slump in defeat, Felix can feel Sylvain’s shuddering gasp beneath his fingertips and where his thighs are pressed to Sylvain’s ribs. “You stupid, selfish fucking prick—why won’t you fight back?” 

Sylvain doesn’t answer, just letting his mouth quirk up in one corner. What would be a beautiful sight on the best of days, just makes Felix’s stomach turn when the smile doesn’t reach Sylvain’s eyes. Sylvain is crying now, his hands warm against Felix’s wrists, still holding onto him as though Felix is something precious … delicate … breakable–as though Felix’s fingers aren’t still wrapped around his neck, with Sylvain’s skin flushed scarlet beneath his touch. 

“Why won’t you try to live?” Felix chokes out, squeezing around Sylvain’s throat just enough that his eyes grow wide again. Sylvain’s tears gather in the fine baby hair at his temples, shining silvery-white in the afternoon light before melting into nothingness. 

“What’s the point of even trying anymore?” Sylvain says. His voice is rough, the words escaping him in a rasp, and he turns his head to the side, breaking eye contact with Felix. “Do you really think any of us are going to make it out of this war alive?” 

“It shouldn’t fucking matter what I think!” Felix growls, frustration in his every word. He wants to shake some sense into Sylvain, to remind him of the sacrifices that both of them have made to live this long and make it this far into a seemingly-endless war. “We made a promise to one another, Sylvain.” 

“I’ve already forsaken so much,” Sylvain murmurs darkly, looking back up to Felix with a sad look in his eyes. “We were just kids then, Fe. What’s one more broken promise?” 

Heat rushes into Felix’s face, gathering in his cheeks and behind his eyes as his field of vision grows cloudy from the tears that threaten to spill over. “What about me?” Felix jolts back, trying to pull his arms from Sylvain’s grasp. Sylvain tightens his grip on Felix, tugging him close again as a sob tears out of his chest. “I have lost everything to this war, Sylvain– _ everything _ ! My father, Glenn, more friends than I could count even if I wanted to. What do I have left? All that I have to my name is a worthless plot of frozen land and a noble title that was never meant to be mine to begin with.”

Sylvain strokes his thumbs across the inside of Felix’s wrists soothingly, brows furrowed. “You still have me.” 

Felix clenches his jaw and tears away from Sylvain, shoving angrily at his chest. “Not if you let yourself get killed, you idiot!”

“Felix,” Sylvain soothes, reaching up and using one hand to thumb at the tears spilling from Felix’s eyes. “I’m not–”

“Then why didn’t you try to stop me! Were you going to let me kill you?” 

“I knew you wouldn’t” Sylvain murmurs, settling his palm on Felix’s cheek–the touch feels too intimate for Felix to stomach, too close to something he’s not sure he’s allowed to have. “And even if you did, at least it would be you. Dying at your hands is more than I could have asked for from this war.” 

“Do you really think that is what I want?” Felix pushes away from Sylvain, stumbling backward and plopping down in the sand between his legs with a _thump_! He scrubs a hand across his face, where the tears are falling freely now, dripping from his chin to his shirt. “For you to die?”

Sylvain heaves himself upright, moving closer so that he is sitting opposite Felix, whose legs are thrown over his own from his fall a moment before. “Fe,” Sylvain’s touch is gentle on Felix’s shoulders as he pulls him close. “I know that you would nev–”

“Don’t!” Felix tries to shove at Sylvain again, but Sylvain grabs his hands, tangling their fingers together, and holding them secure between the two of them. “Don’t touch me!” 

“Felix! Listen to me–I won’t break our promise.” Sylvain’s eyes bore into Felix’s soul in a way that is overwhelmingly familiar and foreign all at once. As though he’s seeing a part of Felix that he’s never seen before, and Felix wants to squirm free of his grip and hide his face behind his hands. “Fuck. Fe, no matter how bad it gets, I won’t die without you, but I’m fucking scared of what this war has done to us. I’m scared of what I have become.”

“And I’m not?” Felix’s voice breaks around the words. “You have seen me in battle, Sylvain. Answer me honestly–am I really any better than Dimitri is? Am I blind with bloodlust like The Boar or can I still lay claim to some kind of humanity? Do you think that you deserve to die any more than the rest of us?” 

“That’s an unfair question.” 

Felix squeezes Sylvain’s fingers where they’re nestled between his own. “Answer me, Sylvain.” 

“We’ve all taken too many lives,” Sylvain sucks a breath in through gritted teeth and turns his head to the sky. The beginnings of yellowish-green bruises are blossoming across his neck in the shape of Felix’s hands, and a pang of guilt hits Felix in the stomach when Sylvain asks simply, “Are we not all Boars in the eyes of the Goddess now, Felix?” 

“We are fighting in her name,” Felix quips.

“Does the goddess now forgive our indiscretions without question? Must we no longer atone for what we have done just because we fight beneath her banner?” Sylvain’s fingers are still intertwined with Felix’s, their hands held to his chest while he looks to the patches of blue sky beyond the leaves overhead. 

Felix hums noncommittally in an attempt to keep himself from screaming. He doesn’t believe in a Goddess who would knowingly cast her own people into war, and who would take so many lives needlessly, but it wouldn’t be prudent to speak the words aloud. 

“No,” Sylvain’s answer to Felix comes after a long while of worrying his bottom lip between his teeth. The single word cuts through the silence around them. “You are not the same as Dimitri. You kill only because you must, not because you want to.”

It’s a relief to hear Sylvain say it, but there is still a small worry that gnaws at Felix’s stomach. “Sometimes I fear that killing is all I know how to do anymore.” 

“I think that we all feel that way, sometimes.” Sylvain looks back to Felix. “We have been raised in battle, and baptized in blood. Can you really fault me for thinking of my own death so often when killing is second nature to me?” 

“Sylvain,” Felix’s voice drops low in warning, and he squeezes Sylvain’s hands in his own. “Our promise may have been made when we were children, but I will stand by it until my dying breath.” 

“As will I.” 

“I do not intend to die in Arianrhod, or Enbarr, or on any of the battlefields that this war will lay fallow before it finds an end.” Hard determination settles in Felix’s words, and he looks down to their hands between them. The closeness of their bodies in addition to Sylvain’s touch makes him feel bold. “I will not die by the hands of another, Sylvain. I will see this war through to its bloody, bitter end. Not for my father, or The Boar, or for Fódlan herself–but for you.” 

Sylvain nods slowly, something like understanding flickering across his face. “Fe … “ 

“I have lost everything to this war, except for you.” Felix trembles ever-so-slightly as he brings their intertwined hands to his mouth, and presses his lips to where Sylvain’s fingers are laced between his own. Ignoring Sylvain’s little gasp, Felix locks eyes with him as he continues. “You are the last thing I have in this world that has ever been mine, and mine alone.” 

Sylvain is frozen for a moment, mouth parted in surprise, before he mimics the gesture, pressing a kiss to the same spot on their hands, and looking to Felix with wide eyes. “I never knew.” 

“How could you not?” Felix’s hands are still shaking with the tremor that courses through his entire body. His words are too close to a confession that Felix has kept inside of himself for what feels like a lifetime. It has been long enough that he doesn’t remember when it first occurred to him, but Felix knows that the feeling has been a part of him for so long that it is too late to reconcile. 

The river babbles nearby, its waters slowed into a murmur by the oxbow bend they are tucked into. Felix hopes the sound is loud enough to at least obscure the pounding of his heart against his rib cage. 

Sylvain watches him for a while, letting the silence settle thick and still between them before he asks, “Do you mean it?” 

Felix wants to break eye contact, and wrench his hands out of Sylvain’s. The summer heat is making being so close together—face to face, chest to chest, and nearly seated in one another’s laps—unbearable for Felix. It takes every fiber of his being to not tear his gaze and body away from Sylvain. “Have I ever lied to you?” 

“No, of course not.” A giddy laugh bubbles out of Sylvain, and he shakes his head. The sound is bright and happy in a way that only Sylvain’s laughter can be– enough to clear the anxious fog from Felix’s head. “I’ve never known you to mince words, Fe.” 

“Then why wouldn’t I mean it?” 

“I didn’t—I just—“ Sylvain let’s out a long-suffering sigh and leans in to rest his forehead against Felix’s. “I really am an idiot, aren’t I?” 

“Yes,” Felix smirks around the answer, tone almost teasing. Extricating his right hand from Sylvain’s, Felix reaches out and settles his palm on Sylvain’s cheek. “You are.”

“You’re shaking,” Sylvain murmurs, covering Felix’s hand with his own. 

“Don’t,” Felix huffs. Sylvain laughs again, almost a giggle this time, and Felix barely contains the smile that threatens to break his composure when it tugs at the corner of his mouth . “Don’t mock me.” 

“Why are you nervous?” Sylvain coos, tilting his head even closer to Felix until their noses are touching. “What’s the worst that could happen?” 

Felix can feel the flush moving through him. The heat in his body has spread from his chest–radiating through his fingertips, rising in his cheeks, and spreading to the tips of his ears–warmth enveloping him entirely. He squeezes his eyes shut so that he can’t see the laughter on Sylvain’s face. If Sylvain is teasing him, he’s being unusually cruel today. “Gautier … “ 

“Fraldarius,” Sylvain breathes his response, and Felix can feel the warm brush of Sylvain’s lips against his cheek. It sends a shiver down his spine that he barely suppresses before Sylvain’s mouth finds his own.

If Felix was warm before, his body burns now, alight with the sensation of their mouths pressed together. He freezes for a second before he pulls his left hand free from Sylvain’s grasp, and fists his fingers in the front of Sylvain’s shirt, tugging him in as close as possible.

A satisfied little noise slips out of Sylvain, and he snakes his arm around Felix’s back, spreading his hand wide between Felix’s shoulder blades. With that Felix takes control of the kiss–all teeth and tongue and a hunger which has been contained for far longer than Felix would care to admit. 

This kiss is the culmination of years of longing, and an impossible desire on Felix’s part. In a perfect world, Felix would take his time with Sylvain, kissing him slowly, steadily, until his jaw ached from the effort. He wants to be able to pin Sylvain against the sandy earth beneath them, and kiss every little bit of his skin, counting each sun-kissed freckle on his way down. If Felix had his way, he would trace the shadow of his fingers, black and blue against Sylvain’s neck, with the tip of his tongue, taking him apart bit by bit. 

As it stands, however, their world is far from perfect. So Felix takes whatever he can get in this very moment, savoring the desperate way that they cling to one another, and the hungry slide of Sylvain’s tongue against his own. 

When Felix pulls back, it is with a breathless laugh, eyes fixed to the spit-slick sheen of Sylvain’s lips. Sylvain himself is glassy eyed, grinning like a fool when he leans in for another quick kiss. After a bout of silence, Felix settles his hands against the purpling bruises on Sylvain’s neck, stroking his fingers against the delicate skin. The touch is an unspoken apology, one that he hopes Sylvain can understand, even if Felix doesn’t say a word. 

“You know, I still think I could stay here forever.” Sylvain finally murmurs, pressing his lips to Felix’s forehead. “Beneath this tree … ” 

“No, you couldn’t.” Felix scoffs, rolling his eyes and pushing Sylvain back until he’s lying in the sand again. It’s an echo of the same sentiment he’d spoken earlier, but it’s gentler this time. 

Sylvain pouts as Felix clambers atop him again, settling his palms against Felix’s slim waist. “Why not? You would be here with me.” 

Felix cocks his head. There is still work to be done. 

“There are still battles left for us to fight.” Felix replies, leaning down for a kiss, steadying himself with his hands pressed into the sand on either side of Sylvain’s head. 

“And what of tomorrow?” Sylvain presses, chasing after Felix’s mouth when he pulls away. “When those battles are through?” 

“We have a war to win.” Felix answers simply. 

Slyvain’s fingers are firm against Felix’s waist, holding him in place. Felix could swear the touch is burning holes through his shirt, and Sylvain’s grip tightens briefly as he asks, “And after that? What will happen after we have brought peace to Fódlan?” 

“There will be much for us to do,” Felix smiles, and presses another kiss to Sylvain’s lips, doing his best to memorize the shape of his mouth. “After all, you’ve a promise to keep, Gautier.” 

**Author's Note:**

> i officially have over 100k of published fic on ao3 now!!!
> 
> come say hey any time on [twitter](https://twitter.com/cosmicbeebees)!


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